Moai of Easter Island

This short film in the Pacifica series by British traveler Simon Bradfield introduces the mysterious moai or living faces of Easter Island. Around 1,000 of these giant stone statues remain on Rapa Nui today, nearly half of them in the quarry at Rano Raraku. All were toppled by the islanders themselves soon after the arrival of Europeans, but many have since been re-erected by archaeologists.

South Pacific Whale Watching

Between 1998 and 2005 whale watching activities in the South Pacific grew 45 percent and the sector now brings in $21 million a year. In 2005 over a hundred thousand visitors went whale watching. The region’s best known venue is Vava’u Tonga, where the whales are present from June to October, but whale watching trips are also offered in New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and the Cook Islands. Thus far, the annual Japanese whale hunt in Antarctica hasn’t targeted the humpback whales commonly seen in the islands, but the threat from Japanese whaling remains.

Carbon Offsets For Sale

A thought-provoking article by British author George Monbiot, Selling Indulgences, discusses the current fashion of using carbon offsets as an excuse for business as usual. Travel agencies and airlines often give you the option of buying a carbon credit with your ticket to offset the carbon emissions resulting from your flight. The money is allocated to projects intended to reduce carbon emissions in developing countries. Thus you can fly halfway around the world with a clear conscience, knowing that the CO2 released by your plane will be offset. No need to change your behavior and the credits are cheap. The parallel with the practice of selling of indulgences to sinners during the Middle Ages is striking.

According to Monbiot, the whole exercise is flawed. Carbon emissions caused by the transportation and energy industries continue to soar, and even if the entire developing world could be made carbon-free, it won’t be enough to prevent catastrophic climate change. The ice sheets at the poles will still melt and the beaches you enjoy today will be gone tomorrow.

Voluntary efforts aren’t good enough. Only government action can tackle carbon emissions by forcing everyone to pay the same price. Nobody likes taxes, but stiff carbon taxes seem to be urgently needed. And those taxes must be levied in developed countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the European Union which fly the planes and burn the fuel. Monbiot’s website Turn Up The Heat provides much information on the issue, albeit largely oriented toward the situation in the United Kingdom. His book is titled Heat: How We Can Stop the Planet Burning.

Map South Pacific Update

I’m in the process of posting all 119 maps from Moon Handbooks South Pacific on MapSouthPacific.com. Considering that a new version of the 2004 edition of South Pacific will not be published, Avalon Travel has kindly supplied me with electronic copies of the maps, which we’re redrawing and adapting for internet use. With each map, I’m providing descriptive text to walk viewers around the island in question. We try to upload two new maps a day.

MapSouthPacific.com already contains 54 maps, some of which are older and may have to be redrawn. The new maps we’ve added over the past few weeks are: Tau, Atiu, Mangaia, Isle of Pines, Lifou, Mare, Ouvea, Oeno, Rennell, Atafu, Fakaofo, Nukunonu, Eua, Niuafoou, Funafuti, Futuna, and Wallis. They’re easily accessible from the site map. I hope you find them useful.

Canadian Harp Seal Hunt

The largest marine mammal slaughter in the world is currently underway on the ice flows in the Gulf of St Lawrence off Newfoundland, Canada. As many as 275,000 harps seal pups are being clubbed and skinned in a disgraceful “hunt” heavily subsidized by the Canadian government to win votes in Atlantic Canada. On April 12, 2008, the protest vessel Farley Mowat owned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was boarded and seized by Canadian police in international waters to prevent its crew from documenting the activities of the sealers. Canadians should bow their heads in shame.

Lonely Planet Author Unmasked

Amazon.com lists nine Lonely Planet guides to Latin America and the Caribbean associated with one Thomas Kohnstamm. On April 22, 2008, Three Rivers Press will release a new book by Kohnstamm titled Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism. I haven’t yet seen this ironic tome but media reports say that Kohnstamm confesses to soliciting freebies, plagiarizing other books, trading in drugs, and making things up while under contract to Lonely Planet.

Most Lonely Planet guidebooks carry a disclaimer which says their authors “don’t take freebies in exchange for positive coverage.” Notice the wording: Lonely Planet doesn’t say they don’t take freebies, just that they don’t take freebies in exchange for positive coverage. I can state categorically here that while out researching my South Pacific guides I don’t take freebies of any kind in exchange for any kind of coverage.

Kohnstamm writes that the meager fees paid to him by Lonely Planet weren’t sufficient to allow him to visit the areas he was supposed to be researching. The fees might have been enough if Kohnstamm wasn’t such a promiscuous stud, but it’s true that Lonely Planet pays its updaters miserably. I stopped writing for them in 2002 when I realized there was no profit or future in it.

Lonely Planet boasts that their authors “don’t research using the internet or phone”. Well, in Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? Kohnstamm brags that he did his research for the 2006 edition of Lonely Planet Colombia while in San Francisco and that a Colombian girlfriend was his primary source. That sort of thing won’t surprise Lonely Planet insiders. The old hands-on Lonely Planet died a decade ago and the only concern of the present stable of authors and editors is doing the minimum to justify their scanty fees and salaries. Since the publisher owns everything, there’s no incentive for the minions to take a personal interest in their work.

To save money and maintain full control, Lonely Planet often assigns inexperienced office clerks and interns to update their guides. Little wonder that some of these underpaid novices resort to plagiarism. My books have been copied by Lonely Planet writers time and again. Two decades ago Tony Wheeler himself sent me a personal letter apologizing for wholesale plagiarism by one Jim Dufresne, who still writes for Lonely Planet. I could have sued Lonely Planet at the time, but Tony was clever enough to offer me a contract to do the first edition of Eastern Europe on a Shoestring and I made a lot of money on that book. In those days Lonely Planet still paid its authors a 10 percent royalty and allowed them to own their copyrights. Today Lonely Planet updaters get no royalties and must sign away all rights, even moral rights. Thus it’s no surprise that the quality of Lonely Planet guides is so uneven.

UPDATE: More on this Issue

Stevenson Samoa Home Vailima

This short film by British traveler Simon Bradfield introduces the final home and resting place of Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. The novelist bought the Vailima estate outside Apia, Samoa, in 1889, and lived there until his death in 1894. He and his wife Fanny are buried on the hilltop you’ll see in the film.

Merahi Rapa Nui Foundation

A young woman from Easter Island named Marcela Rex Tuki, currently living in Houston, Texas, has founded the Merahi Rapa Nui Foundation to help the community on Rapa Nui in the areas of health care and education. There’s a lack of medical equipment and specialized personnel on Easter Island, and the island’s remoteness makes it hard for the inhabitants to access the superior health care available on the mainland. The foundation is attempting to raise money to solve some of these problems, as the website explains.

Fiji Hotel Tax Increase

Effective April 1, 2008, the hotel turnover tax charged in Fiji has been increased from three percent to five percent. This tax is in addition to the 12.5 percent value added tax (VAT), bringing the taxes charged at hotels up to 17.5 percent in total. The less expensive hotels often include these taxes in their quoted rates while the more upscale resorts do not. To avoid a 17.5 percent miscalculation, always ask if the tax is included.

Pacifica Pilot Trailer

This four-minute trailer previews a documentary series about the South Pacific by British traveler Simon Bradfield. It’s a good introduction to the mysteries of Vanuatu, Fiji, and Easter Island.